Crime and Punishment

Crime has become an inseparable part of society. But this doesn’t means that we can allow them to impact our daily lives and create darkness even on the brightest days. Eliminating crime is must and harsh punishments are one of the effective ways to reduce crime. It stands especially true for the people who commit crime just for fun. The concept of punishment is based on two important theories. They are:-

Do harsh punishments prevent more crime? Do harsh punishments cause the society to become more brutal and insensitive, leading to more crime?

Indians love to hate themselves for almost everything. Whenever a resident Indian meets a foreigner or even a non-resident Indian, the resident is apologetic about potholes on roads, about cattle on streets, about stray dogs, about corruption, about uncouth politicians, about this and about that. If an Indian is proud of anything, it is generally about the past – history, religion, spirituality etc. Regarding today’s India, Indians show pride on the achievements of software industry.

According to National Crime Research Bureau of India, rape rate in India is just about 1.5 per 100,000, while it is about 32 per 100,000 in USA. These statistics (quoted from memory) are based on police reports. It used to be said that large number of rape cases must be going unreported in India. Data from 1992 and 1996 International Crime Surveys carried out by UNICRI, Rome confirms that India does indeed have one of the lowest rates of sexual incidents in the world. (For more statistics please refer to the annexure)

Indian police forces are among the most primitive and corrupt ones in the world. Judicial system is not much better. USA is the richest country of the world. The police force of USA is equipped with the best possible equipment and is trained in the best possible manner. Americans take pride in their efficient judicial system. The natural question that comes to one’s mind is — in spite of undoubted superiority of US law enforcement system, why is it that women are relatively much safer in India than in USA?

It is not just the women who are unsafe in USA. Chances of burglary in USA are more than double compared to Mumbai. The chances of being robbed in rich USA are about six times higher than in poor slum-infested Mumbai. Assault or threat of assault in USA is at least thrice as likely as in Mumbai. And if you park your car on an American street, you are ten times more likely to see your car vandalized.

Would the USA be able to reduce its crime rate if the country employed a larger number of police officers or increased the size of judiciary?

Punishment is supposed to be a deterrent to crime. It is supposed to instill a sense of fear in a would-be criminal. Fear is undoubtedly a strong emotion. However, its efficacy in crime prevention is doubtful.

I think Punishments must be too harsher to dare anyone from breaking laws. One know why Inida is ahead in crime and low in GDP due to lack of strict laws and harsher punishments. Punishments like making him work in coal mines, garbage recycle plants, cleaning public toilets, not allowing him to meet his familly members.